


From His Soul to Her Skin

by msmrvl



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Implied Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Katara (Avatar)-centric, Lost Love, Major Character Injury, POV Katara (Avatar), Sad, Sad Ending, Soulmates, The Last Agni Kai (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmrvl/pseuds/msmrvl
Summary: She always thought it would be Aang.  She was wrong.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86





	From His Soul to Her Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic brought to you by my midnight depression. You've been warned.

In black, curling print across Hakoda’s wrist were the words, ‘I love you’. Katara remembered the day that those words appeared. She remembered her mother’s death with visceral clarity, with aching prominence. She remembered her dad, staring down at his arm. She remembered his eyes; glazed over and empty. Up until that moment, he’d always seemed so invincible.

After Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe lost his soulmate, he was never the same. Katara had wondered if he might’ve been okay had it not been for those words, the eternal reminder branding his skin. 

As Azula’s lightning lit up her eyes, she found herself unable to think of anything else. Hakoda’s eyes had never regained the same brightness, his smile had never regained its fullness. 

As Zuko jumped in front of her, she could see her father’s eyes, forever haunted. She wondered what sort of ghosts he saw, if Kya’s memory was etched into the surface of his eyes, burned into the inside of his eyelids. She wondered if she was doomed to spend the rest of her life seeing ghosts as well. 

As she ran towards Zuko, Azula in chains, she ignored the warning sensation beginning under the skin of her wrist. She didn’t let herself wonder if this was what her father had felt. She didn’t let herself wonder if his heart had felt as though it might burst, if his skin had felt like it was aflame.

Katara had wondered, at the darkest part of night when the moon was high in the sky and everyone else slept, when golden eyes were the only thing her mind could conjure. She had wondered... but no. Why linger on something so impossible? So improbable?

When she reached him, she pushed her panicky thoughts away. She smothered the memories of her father. She ignored the way that her hands shook. 

Zuko shuddered violently, his body twitching as though electricity was still sparking in his veins. Katara struggled to turn him over, desperately pulling at his shirt and his arm and nearly sobbing in relief when she finally managed. The front of his shirt was singed beyond repair and smoking ever so slightly. Tears welled in Katara’s eyes at the sight of Zuko’s chest; the lightning had certainly not held back. His flesh was ruined, smooth white charred and framed by angry blistering skin. 

Katara wasted no more time. She pulled the water from the skin at her waist up to coat her hands. She pressed them to Zuko’s chest, expecting him to flinch or cry out, but he didn’t react at all. Dread filled her chest, heavy and leaden, even as the water began to glow. As her element rippled against Zuko’s chest, Katara clung to the shimmer of hope fighting against the darkening fear in her gut. 

She had healed Aang, brought him back from the dead. She had held her hands to his back and wished death away. She didn’t allow herself to consider that then, she’d had spirit water. 

Katara pushed on, concentrating her energy on the task at hand, but she could feel the damage and it was deep, unforgiving. “Katara,” Zuko’s voice was hoarse, rasping. Katara looked up, tears rolling down her cheeks and clouding her vision. He lifted his hand to her wrist, barely managing a weak smile. “Thank you.”

Ba Sing Se seemed to be a million years away, the twisting passages of the crystal catacombs too far to reach. 

The warmth of his hug was a lifetime ago, the feeling of being so deeply understood, so implicitly supported.

Katara sniffled, smiling back though the expression was wobbly at best. “Don’t thank me yet,” she said, “thank me when you’re back on your feet.” Zuko smiled again, but the expression fell away. She felt Zuko’s fingers loosen, felt his hand slip from her arm though he tried to hold on. The water around her hands fell, splashing onto Zuko’s torso and the cobblestones below. “Zuko?” Katara’s hands went to his face, lifting his head into her lap. “Zuko, answer me,” she said. Instead, his head lolled to the side, his face going slack. Katara felt at his neck, growing more desperate by the second. She couldn’t find a pulse. That sharp, burning sensation was dancing across her arm, slowly becoming more intense, and Katara looked down to see dark words appearing across her skin.

“No, no, no,” she breathed, choking on the thick feeling in her throat. She returned her attention to Zuko’s injury, pulling the forgotten water to her once more and pressing it to his chest. “Don’t do this,” she said, her voice shaking. Her hands were trembling as well, her heart picking up in pace and sending jolts of pain through her with every beat. “Zuko,” her voice broke, a sob escaping her. The water’s glow faded, the light vanishing even as she pushed it to stay. 

She couldn’t feel her hands but for the violence of the tremors that racked them. She was shaking too badly to maintain control of the water, and another sob tore through her as the liquid fell to the ground. She pressed her ear against Zuko’s chest. She could scarcely breath, lungs heaving as she strained her ears for the slightest murmur of a heartbeat.

Katara lifted her head slowly. The tingling in her arm was gone, replaced by a dull throbbing. 

“I feel like part of me is gone,” Hakoda had said, so many years ago to Bato. He hadn’t realized that Katara was awake, hadn’t noticed her shaky breaths as Sokka snored next to her. She’d never heard her father cry before. 

Katara slowly lifted her arm. She closed her eyes, afraid to see what she already knew was there. When she opened them, it was all she could do to keep herself from falling over. 

In black, curling print across her wrist were the words, ‘Thank you’.


End file.
